For over 4 years Parks Victoria and Barengi Gadjin Land Council (BGLC) have been working behind closed doors to formulate a plan to close more than half of the Mount Arapiles-Tooan State Park to all recreational users. This is a piece of public land who’s main users, up to this point, have been rock climbers – well over 50,000 a year and they make up more than 90% of the visitors to the park. These recently announced restrictions on access include some of the worlds largest climbing bans and eliminate thousands of individual climbing routes – many considered to be irreplaceable by the climbing community. Read the details of their plan here.

This article covers some of the ways that community consultation regarding these bans has been either ignored or manipulated to create a an end result that Parks Victoria and BGLC want.

Parks Victoria has announced community consultation about this plan on its Engage Victoria website – a familiar platform if you were around during the Grampians bans.

Have they “engaged” with the community in this journey? No.

Continue reading The Con of Consultation – Arapiles’ climbing bans and Parks Victoria →